The meeting covered a wide variety of topics, with residents sharing their thoughts on diversity training for police, city employees and city leaders; increased diversity of city- and school-district employees; and programs offered for youths in the city’s Second and Fourth wards.
The Census Bureau has estimated 8.4 percent of the city’s residents are black, while 5.3 percent are Hispanic.
While residents in other cities across the country have expressed anger with policing after recent shootings of citizens — in Baton Rouge, La., and Minnesota, and of police officers killed in Dallas by a sniper during a protest rally — nobody at Monday’s meeting criticized policing in Hamilton.
In fact, one compliment came from the crowd at the Booker T. Washington Community Center: Linda Frierson told Police Chief Craig Bucheit she was impressed to recently see a positive interaction between a Hamilton Police officer and three boys in her Second Ward neighborhood.
“I liked that, because I don’t want these young black boys to feel when they see a police officer, they need to run,” Frierson said. She said later: “I really like the chief.”
Monday evening’s crowd was mostly middle-aged and older. They pressed for answers, including why it’s so difficult to find jobs in local governments and lack of resources to help build up their communities and children.
But afterward, Bucheit was gratified that he heard no complaints about his officers.
“I think tonight is a validation of all the efforts we’ve put forward,” and the men and women on the police force who work on community engagement every day, he said.
He credited the work by men and women of his force, and a program called Police and Citizen Encounters (PACE) that was created about a year ago with help from the NAACP to foster better cooperation between police and residents.
He also has changed things like maximum age requirements for new officers to make it easier for minorities to be hired. To take a police entrance test now in Hamilton, all you need is a valid driver’s license and either a high school diploma or a GED, he said.
“We recruit for diversity, we hire for character, and we train for excellence,” Bucheit said. If someone has character and is a hard worker, that person can be trained to be a good officer, he said.
The Hamilton Police Department will host an open house from 5 to 8 p.m. Aug. 11 at its headquarters, 331 S. Front St. The event will feature a cookout and a recruitment effort for people interested in becoming police officers.
“We’re trying things we haven’t done before,” Bucheit said, “including challenging the community to point out good candidates to become officers.”
The city in late 2014 created a Diversity and Inclusion Commission to improve such issues, according to Council member Timothy Naab
“We’ve been addressing internally for both city staff, and externally for our residents, our commitment toward diversifying and diversity training for our staff and bringing staff along in our process of our focus toward diversity,” he told the Journal-News last week.
The city last month co-hosted free diversity-training workshops for organizations at the BTW center.
“It is important that we address the issues that affect our community and the people we serve,” Bob Harris, president of SECA and a Second Ward community leader, told the Journal-News last week. “It is time to implement and follow through, stand up and not be denied. Promote and carry our pride. Let’s talk and do it. Like Nike.”
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